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CHAPTER 36
NOAH
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Austin nudged my shoulder.
“I’m fine.” I watched the rest of the team as they celebrated.
“You were on fire tonight, Aus,” Mase said, tipping his beer toward him. “A shutout. Fucking A.”
“I’m not going to lie.” Austin grinned around the rim of his Heineken. “It feels good. First game in the bag, only another thirty-three to go.”
“Bring it on.”
I mumbled some inaudible response as I nursed my beer. My calves and glutes ached, and my lungs burned. God, my lungs fucking burned. But I loved the bone-deep exhaustion, the lingering trickle of adrenaline in my bloodstream.
The team was high on the win, and the atmosphere in The Penalty Box was electric. Everyone was here to celebrate our first win of the season.
But my heart wasn’t in it.
Because she’d been there.
Aurora.
My shortcake.
I’d spotted her behind the glass the second I got out on the ice. But, like the exhibition game, her presence only pushed me to play some of the best damn hockey of my life.
Hockey had always been about proving my old man wrong, about showing him that I could make something of myself, that I didn’t need him or his money.
The only person I’d wanted to impress tonight, though, was Aurora. Which was fucking stupid since I’d been the one to walk away from her.
Jesus, I was a fucking idiot.
The only person who had ever wanted me regardless of my name or my skills on the ice, and I’d given her up.
Because I was a fucking coward.
“Hey, you good?” Connor asked, looking at me with a strange expression.
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I hate to tell you, man, but little Hart just walked in here. And she looks—”
“Fuck.” My eyes found her across the bar, knocking the air clean from my lungs.
She was in tight black jeans that showcased her plump ass, her glossy dark hair spilling over her shoulders like a waterfall, drawing my eye straight to the sweater straining across her incredible tits.
“You are so fucking screwed.” Connor clapped me on the shoulder.
“What are you—”
But he was already gone, stalking toward Ella like a caveman.
“I’m going to the bar,” I said to the rest of the guys.
I needed a second to catch my breath. To figure out how the fuck I was going to be around Aurora without falling to my knees and begging for her forgiveness. Because as the days wore on, my confidence in the fact I’d made the right decision wavered more and more.
“Holden.” Stu, the bartender, waved me down. “Good game, my man. You want another beer?”
